Anteroom
by Adam Kadmon
Summary: The children are always waiting close by. AU.


Anteroom

Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.

/\/\/\/\

She saw him coming out of the employee bathroom just after six-thirty in the morning. His clothes were rumpled, his hair was wet, his shaving was haphazard. He glanced down the hall and found her staring. A flash of guilt raced across his face.

He straightened and tugged his collar into place. He issued a stiff nod: "Good morning."

"Good morning," she replied.

Some form of greeting was expected. They met years ago in Germany during a conference on the expansion of self-determining computers in the business world. The forum was outside their exact fields of expertise but the underlying subject matter demanded their attendance. He was with his wife; she was with her husband. The last she heard he was still married.

They kept loose contact since, mostly out of professional courtesy. Their world was a small place. It was little surprise when they wound up working in the same lab.

She continued down the hall; the elevators to the lower levels and her office were past him. Choosing an alternate route would only feel more awkward. Just pretend nothing was unusual.

They passed without a word. Somehow, when her back was to him, she knew he wasn't watching her.

/\/\/\/\

The elevators from above and below reached ground level at the same time. They stepped out and met with a dull surprise.

It was close to lunch. She decided to spoil herself and take an unheard of ten-minute head start. He just wanted an excuse to stretch his legs.

"Hello again," she said with a polite smile.

"Hello," he replied with another brief nod, his form of courtesy.

They walked together towards the cafeteria.

"About this morning…" He scratched at his stubbly chin. "If it looked like I stayed the night here, I did."

"Do you want me to ask why you stayed the night here?"

"No. I just felt some clarification was needed."

"Oh."

"You were here early," he redirected.

"I'm usually here around five-thirty. I overslept today."

He gave a short hum from his throat. "Ever the dedicated one."

"I have to be," she said.

The cafeteria was thinly populated. Chefs prepping dishes, a handful of employees milling at the end of the line.

"Want to share a table?" she asked on impulse. He was about to answer. "Or we could go to my office and fuck." The word was unfamiliar on her tongue. It came out awkward and pitiful but she couldn't think of anything else that fit.

He looked at her, unfazed. "Sure."

/\/\/\/\

Her office was pinpoint disarray. She knew where everything was in the whirlwind mess and no one else did. Anyone who entered was dependent on her guidance to gain what they wanted.

It was in the bowels of the lab, near the actual work and function of the complex. A mark of distinction and honor, given in recognition of past achievements and future hopes. She quietly typed in the access code at the door and it slid open. She led him in.

Left of the door was a worn leather couch she captured during one of the administration's periodic refurnishing of the corporate lounge. It was less a piece of furniture and more a comforting illusion for the uninitiated who entered her office. She learned people who visited and saw nothing but stacks of printouts, binders and computers became acutely uncomfortable. The couch brought a degree of humanity to her most human of spaces.

They sat on the couch. It squeaked pleasantly at being used. She fidgeted. She forgot how to begin. She shivered as his hand slid up her neck behind her ear to position her head for a kiss. He leaned in.

She always held a brief attraction for him. He was a part of her world, yet apart. He knew the protocol, the decorum, but never fully assimilated into it. He kept himself separate, free to maneuver as he saw fit.

She admired his physical form. He was tall, impressive. He was meticulously indifferent with his appearance, working hard at his nonchalance to affect others. His jaw was sharp, his limbs were long, his eyes were a particular endearing blue.

He kissed her with a subdued confidence, like he did it a thousand times before. Only one hand touched her, still loosely meshed in her hair. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to insist with tongue and claws and cock like he was supposed to.

He did not. He continued with tentative assurance, searching out what worked and what did not. No one had ever been this gentle with her before. She felt the insistent tears push behind her eyes.

She broke the kiss and bowed into the crook of his neck. Noiseless sobs gently shook her.

"I'm sorry," she managed.

He let her end the embrace with the same unfazed degree of interest he held when she suggested it.

"I'm sorry."

/\/\/\/\

They were outside the high sloped windows of the cafeteria. Before them the lab's perfect manicured green lawn sprawled out to the highway. A few lonely cars moved in the distance.

She was on a metal bench, holding a small Styrofoam cup of coffee on her lap. He leaned against the wall beside her, casually letting a bent cigarette hang from his lips. Smoke drifted away in a lazy curl.

"I'm sorry," she said once more. She was calm.

He didn't respond but it was not an angry or disappointed silence. She felt oddly comforted by his refusal to issue any kind of half-hearted absolution.

"It's just been a very long time." She didn't know why she was still talking.

"For me as well."

She startled. She wasn't expecting him to speak at all.

They were quiet for a time.

"I guess it made me feel a little guilty," she finally admitted.

"Guilty?"

Kyoko ran a hand through her hair. "Maybe I can't forget… about what that act can lead to. And what I lost because of it."

He exhaled ribbons of smoke from his nose.

"A parent," Gendo said, "should never outlive their child."

/\/\/\/\

The train was packed like always, but quiet despite the crowd. He stood by the doors, ready to be the first off, a private, silly victory. Beside him an office worker bumped into his shoulder on a steep turn.

"Sorry," she murmured without eye contact. She made herself as small as possible.

He didn't bother responding.

He looked out over the dark city. Lights and cars blurred with the train's speed. Pedestrians became muddy smears on the streets. There was no moon.

The train glided out between a grouping of high buildings and his view opened to a wide panorama of the city's residential blocks. He strained to see and leaned towards the window. Far away, like a midnight mirage, was the apartment complex, dotted with light.

And then the train sped around another grouping of buildings and it was lost.

The office woman bumped his shoulder again. She apologized again with a stutter. Her cheeks were dusted with red.

For a moment, he thought of Kyoko.

/\/\/\/\

They met again at the elevators. He was sure she wasn't waiting for him.

They walked together to the cafeteria. Most of the tables were full or partially occupied. The noise was heavy.

"So many people today," she murmured idly. "I'm not really hungry."

"Then why are you here?" he asked.

"I wonder if I really will feel guilty."

He glanced at her. He did not speak.

She looked at him, almost shyly. "I don't think we should use my office again."

/\/\/\/\

The hotel room was upscale but sparse. A place where people with respect went to lose it.

They were side-by-side in bed staring up at the ceiling. Gendo twisted his wedding ring around his finger. It was difficult to move.

"It bothers you?" Kyoko asked. She couldn't bring herself to utter the word affair.

"No," he answered. "There are times I wonder if I should still wear it."

The skin of his finger stretched and pulled.

"But you still do," she stated.

He was quiet for a time. He let go of the ring and his hand fell to his side.

"It's for appearances. I am not so arrogant to think I am where I am by my skill alone."

"A marriage of convenience?" Her words were not cruel or mocking. They were soft with the gentle understanding of firsthand knowledge.

"It's insurance," he told her, not offended. "I am my wife's husband before anything else."

"Do you resent that?"

"I accept it. I accepted it a long time ago."

She smiled thinly. "You didn't answer me."

He sighed noiselessly through his nose. He reached for a cigarette, paused, retracted his hand.

"I don't resent it," he told her. "It was how it had to be."

She stayed quiet, waiting for him. He relented.

"Things were good for a time. I went to the right places, met the right people… and I had her. The world might claim her mind and her work but I had her heart.

"And then she got pregnant." His voice was strange, like he was still trying to figure out how that happened. Some impossible mystery of the universe. "She lost interest in me. She'd get distracted before, by study or research, but she'd always return to me.

"But when she had her son she lost interest in anything that wasn't him. Her work suffered. Her backers were worried, but her potential was enough to make them wait. They treated parenthood like a fad she was caught up in.

"Her son died when he was ten. A car crash. The daughter of a family friend was drunk behind the wheel and he was with her. Picking him up from school or something." He waved the particulars away. "That girl was always a problem child. She hated how much she wanted her father's attention.

"She climbed out from the crash with a few scratches. Her parents had pull, so she escaped the incident with a slap on the wrist. Her parents sent her away after that, though.

"She—" His voice rearranged to a separate, unique tenor when referring to his wife, "—changed again after he died. She was hollow. There was nothing left inside to feel anything, for anyone.

"I lost the…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "I lost."

He held his hand up to see the wedding ring. It flashed dully as he moved it.

"That tiny life in her hands made from her flesh and blood, totally dependent on her… The ultimate application of her life, taken away from her, leaving only perfect memories… How could I compete with that?" He kept shaking his head. "How could I compete with that?"

/\/\/\/\

Gendo stood before her apartment complex. It was a tall, E-shaped structure with a parking lot and courtyard in the hollows. Tiered balconies lined the building's façade, dotted with small gardens or bare clothes racks. It was far cheaper than what they could afford but she insisted on it. She wanted a grounded, normal existence for her child.

It was early, just after dawn. A few windows were lit, dull and unwavering. A sedan sped by behind him.

He checked his watch. He'd be late for work. He knew it wouldn't matter.

He turned, let his hands slip into his pockets and headed for the train depot. Owning a car in this city was more trouble than it was worth and the lab's car service was nothing but a poorly disguised way for management to monitor employee movement.

The streetlights turned off without a flicker. He walked.

/\/\/\/\

"I don't think she'd want me to by happy," Kyoko admitted. The words were quiet, secret. "I made her for my own selfish desires and treated her that way. I never saw her as someone distinct, an individual. I made her as an extension of me. And when she died a part of me died, too."

She was staring up at the hotel ceiling again. She didn't know how many times she saw it. After the first she forced herself not to count.

"She was a child of spite. I made her out of spite. And she was a very spiteful child. A part of me was glad about that. I didn't deserve her love. I never did anything to earn it."

Gendo was in the hotel room shower. She declined his offer to share it and he went in alone, not offended. She wondered at his inability to take offense. Was he so jaded? Was he so disappointed with his life that nothing anyone could do was worse than what already happened? Or was he simply that coldly rational about everything?

"I want to forget. I want to be done with her. I want to stop regretting her."

It was five years since her daughter sneered at her or cursed at her. Five years since she turned her back on her. The anniversary was when she propositioned Gendo in her office.

She wanted his aloof demeanor to distract her, to free her of her daughter, if only for a moment. Isolation had not worked. After five years she was ready to try human contact.

"All I wanted was you to be you. To be a different you."

How could she forget with him when he was just as consumed with his own dead child?

Kyoko listened to the shower run, the gentle splatter of water on tile. She waited for her turn.

/\/\/\/\

They hadn't spoken in days. It wasn't unusual. Since their arrangement began an unspoken rule of discretion and fluidity of absence took effect. Some weeks they met nearly every day, even if just for coffee. Some weeks passed without a glance. He was fine with either.

A string of quiet rumblings from his department regarding her reached him and he snuck away to see her. Before he always waited for her to initiate and advance. It was easier.

He reached her office. Her name placard was gone. No one answered the door when he pinged the comm.

He returned upstairs and found two men posted near his office, one tall, one fat. They spoke as he neared.

"Jun from Accounting is having a small stroke," the fat one said. "Something about Soryu down in the dungeon." He saw Gendo approach. "Oh, hey. Do you know anything about it?"

"About what?"

"You didn't hear?" the tall one asked him. There was subtle accusation behind the words. "She requested a transfer, back to Germany. Real quick and quiet."

They paused to observe his reaction. He refused them one.

"She apparently didn't tell anyone," the fat one continued. "Even the members of her staff were surprised. Feh. There's no loyalty anymore."

"All the resources she had access to here…" The tall one shook his head. "To just throw it all away…"

He didn't stop walking. He opened his office door.

"Just as well," the fat one said. "She hasn't produced anything of worth since she's been here."

The tall one nodded. "I guess her kid killing herself messed her up more than the higher-ups thought."

He shut the door.

/\/\/\/\

He went back to her apartment. His key still worked and his passcode wasn't deleted. He slipped his shoes off beside hers and made his way down the front hall to the kitchen.

Her work was everywhere. Stacks of papers on the floor, loose discs, notepads, pencils with the erasers ground into the metal casings. Four laptops, two turned on, in a tangle of cords around a bulky external hard drive. Scientific journals swayed in mismatched towers. Reference books with ruined bindings and bulging with noted pages lined every room. Empty food cartons littered the ground.

Despite it all it still smelled good.

She was at the kitchen table with a newspaper and yet another laptop. A half-empty cup of cold tea sat at her elbow. She wore a housecoat. Her hair fell limply down her chest and back. She used to keep it short, loosely framing her face, accentuating its curves and shape. Now it hung around her in a clumpy veil.

He stopped at the entrance of the kitchen. He suddenly recalled how the refrigerator used to be plastered with drawings and schoolwork from her son. There used to be photos, too; always of him, always alone.

The TV murmured from the living room. Business news.

He stayed until she blinked, raised her eyes from the paper, then raised her head. She turned to face him.

"I'm home," he said.

/\/\/\/\

End

Author notes: And now I'm imagining a bad plot where Shinji and Asuka are related. Maybe something humorous might work.

OMAKE

They stared at the far wall, he sitting propped up against the rail of the umbilical bridge, she berthed in the cage. Gendo turned his head slightly in her direction to see her giant four eyes.

"You're so quiet nowadays," he lamented. "I shouldn't be surprised. You must be as disappointed in your child as I am with mine. They seem doomed to failure. Or, at best, mediocrity."

Unit-02 remained impassive.

"Even Rei… That girl's dead-eyed indifference to the world requires me to hold her hand on every little decision. At least Shinji and your Asuka have hormones to motivate them."

He cleared his throat in apology.

"Not that I'd let them copulate without your blessing. But that boy seems to have inherited Yui's deviant libido. And luck. It's completely ridiculous that Shinji copped a feel on his mother's clone, and then enters his mother nearly every day. Freud would orgasm to death."

Gendo sighed it away. He gazed back up at the Evangelion.

"You're as accommodating as ever. You're the only one who understands me, Kyoko-chan."


End file.
